For the first four years of his life, Ben lived in one house, went to one Sunday School, had the same friends, went to the same parks with his mom, and shopped in the same stores. Then all of a sudden everything changed.

Ben's family moved all the way across the country. But they didn't even move right from one house to another. Before leaving the old city, they stayed with relatives and friends. Ben's mom and dad didn't always know where they were going to be staying each night. Then they had to leave their two cats behind at his aunt and uncle's house when they finally drove across the country, and Ben wasn't sure he was going to see them again. They also left a lot of his toys because they could only bring what would fit in the car.

From the start Ben wasn't exactly sure why all of this was happening, either. He did know that Dad's business hadn't worked out very well, and that Mom and Dad were very, very worried about money. In fact, all of a sudden there didn't seem to be any money in the family at all. And then Dad was offered a job on the other side of the country.

When they got where Dad was going to work, they had to stay in several different places. Finally, in the spring, Dad went back to the old city and drove the cats, Ben's toys, and all their other stuff across the country in a big truck. Then they moved into a house with their own things.

All that time Ben knew one thing for sure—that he and Mom and Dad loved each other, and that they loved and trusted God, even when things weren't too good.

Sometimes, during that year, Ben thought it would have been better if he'd never had to leave his old house and good friends. But because he'd been a Christian Scientist for as long as he could remember, he knew what those thoughts were.

They were what his Sunday School teacher called "error thoughts," because they were sad and wrong. Ben knew he didn't have to listen to them. "Get away from me, error," he would say, and with his imagination he slammed the door in error's face. ^{See Mrs. Eddy's statement in Science and Health ( p. 234 ): "We should become more familiar with good than with evil, and guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we bar our doors against the approach of thieves and murderers."}

Once when he did that, a different kind of thought came. Ben knew that thought came from God. It was "You take your joy with you, wherever you go." When he told this to Mom, she said, "That definitely is an angel thought, Ben!" ^{On page 581 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy defines angels as "God's thoughts passing to man. ..."}

Soon, Ben was making new friends and finding new things to do, like sledding and ice-skating, things he couldn't do where he had lived before. He went to a new Sunday School and found out that the school where he was going to start kindergarten in the fall was a few blocks from their new home.

When Ben's first report card came, Mom went for a conference with his teacher. First, she told Mom about his schoolwork, which she said was good.

"But the thing I like best about Ben," she added, "is that he's such a happy child. He seems to enjoy everything he does."

Ben's teacher didn't know about all the problems his family had just been through. But Ben had learned something very important. Joy isn't something you can lose. It comes from God. It belongs to us. Joy doesn't come from being in a certain place or having certain things. Even if you move, you take joy with you.

Note to parents:

These days many children not only move but also experience serious disruption in the normal life of the family. So it's particularly important that we can establish through our prayer that goodness, joy, and the cohesive qualities traditionally associated with home and parents really come to us from God.

Christian Scientists teach their children that God is the real Father and Mother. Understanding this helps us, as parents, to remove the tremendous burden of personal responsibility for what our children experience. It frees us to do our best and to trust God, our Father and Mother, who is always with us.

Ben found out that joy does not come from particular people or circumstances. He proved this. And other children, who have undergone even more traumatic experiences than Ben's, have been able to prove it, too.

The joy that Christ Jesus promised his followers is not just for adults, it's for everyone—a present possibility now, even in the fast-lane world of the 1980s. He said: "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. ... These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." ^{John 15:7, 11.}